The Baby and the Smuggler
by Lone Wolf8
Summary: When a small time Smuggler gets into trouble in over his head, can he make it out alive? Read on to find the answer.


A.N. Greetings Readers! LoneWolf here, you might know me from my SuperSmashBros stories, or my story of the Old Republic, thought I doubt that last one since the only reviews I've received are from friends. Anyway! This is a short story, inspired by a horror story I heard on Halloween with some friends, the more I listened the more I realized it could make a great story if it were changed to fit with StarWars. So here you have it. Enjoy.

The Baby

Veemo Long was a kidnapper, a Rodian, who worked the Southern Tatooine territory near the Imperial Capitol of Bestine. His routine was simple: He snatched babies from families vacationing in the City from other planets and then smuggled them to a small town not far from Bestine. From there, the kids entered the vast underground network that was the slavery chain of Tatooine. Where they went or what use they were put to after Veemo turned them in was no concern of his. He was in it for the credits.

Veemo was skulking outside the star port customs station when he pegged a young couple for his latest hit, from the appearance they were locals, probably returning from a trip off world. In the moment it didn't strike him as odd that a Twi'lek and a Human would be with a child, after all, maybe the kid was adopted. The woman was carrying a blanketed bundle over her shoulder and Veemo figured the kid for no more than a few months old.

Veemo liked infants, but not for the reasons of most beings did. They were easy to run with. They didn't struggle or fight, and if they cried it didn't seem too odd to on lookers. And as merchandise, they had fewer identifying marks. His bosses would be happy. And happy bosses meant a pocketful of creds for Veemo.

He fell in step behind the couple, walking casually, occasionally looking at a market stall and for all appearances just wandering the same direction as them while window shopping. He began sizing up the male; he looked wiry, but not the type who'd be much of a problem. The woman didn't strike him as the mother type. She looked more trim and fit than he would have expected from someone who'd dropped a child out only a short time before, or even the type to adopt, she just didn't fit the usual look. But Veemo had no reason to believe she wouldn't respond the same way they all did. Get the drop on daddy and mommy gets so flustered she doesn't hold on to junior very tight.

They had reached a partly roofed in speeder lot now, a place Veemo knew like the back of his hand. The path extended down and around the corner, and was full of dark shadows to pounce from, no one outside would here any commotion.

Quickly Veemo moved forward, his vibro knuckler in his right hand. He went to strike, but the guy turned around, unusually fast, almost like he'd been waiting for someone to come at him from behind. The knuckler struck his shoulder but he grabbed Veemo's arm and took him down in a tumble.

Veemo had his blaster out. He'd never fired it before, he'd never needed to. One wave of a blaster and the smart victims backed off, usually with their hands up. This guy wasn't too smart. He was wrestling Veemo for the blaster, as though his life depended on it. In the scuffle the blaster got jammed under the guy's chin. When the idiot tried to pull it out of Veemo's hand the stun/kill switch popped and Veemo felt the trigger squeeze under the pressure of his finger.

The guy's throat muffled the report of the blaster. Veemo was up in a second, heading for the Twi'lek. Incredibly, she didn't scream for her husband, no, she was looking around for a way to escape without having to get by Veemo's gun. When he reached for the baby, she didn't offer any resistance. Instead she just backed up against the wall of the garage until she was flat against it. Her eyes never left him, the icy look they held gave Veemo chills, like she didn't even care that he was taking her child, like it meant nothing to her.

Veemo thought of popping her too for good measure, but decided every second spent here was another second that a Storm Trooper squad could be closing in and the look that Twi'lek had was starting to give him a bad feeling about this whole deal. He was out of the garage and on the street in moments.

With the baby tucked securely in the crook of his arm, Veemo moved from shadow to shadow thrown by the buildings. It was imperative that he avoid being seen - at all costs. A Rodian with a baby would be no shock to anyone, a Rodian with a twi'lek baby would draw suspicion, even on a planet like Tatooine.

Veemo was craning hid head around the corner of a building to see of the coast was clear when he felt the bundle slip. Instinctively, he fumbled for the child, who was pretty light for his size. The child made no sound and Veemo thanked himself that the kid was a heavy sleeper. He hoped junior would stay down for the count the next hour or so.

Moving through alleys, Veemo snaked his way to the out-skirts of town. The Imperial Storm Troopers had no doubt been informed of the death of the human by now, and it was just a matter of time before the closed off all routes out of town and had scout troopers searching the sands by speeder bike and sand troopers on mounted patrol. He'd timed his hit so it would be dark enough to slip over the canyons and valleys surrounding the town, but not too dark to see on the other side. Moving agilely, he sprinted from behind the garbage shed of a Cantina. The canyons here weren't deep, but they were rocky, it would be hard from mounted troopers or the armored storm troopers to follow.

The baby bobbed up and down on his shoulder, oblivious to Veemo's exertions, as he skidded and slid down the canyon and then clambered back up the other side. Once he reached the other side Veemo doubled back to a small town that he knew to be in this part of the desert. Spice dealers dispatched their transporters from here. Pirates counted their loot here. Baby smugglers picked up their cargo from here.

He had just reached the shantytown, when he tripped on a rock in the darkness. He couldn't control his balance and went face forward into the dirt, his tiny burden falling beneath him. Briefly he felt something jam against his rib cage, before it gave way sickeningly and flattened beneath him.

Pulling himself up he plucked the silent child from the ground and gingerly, fearfully, pulled back the flap of the blanket from his face. The kid was dead, no doubt, Veemo had seen enough dead kids to know.

All that work and he'd end up destroying the merchandise! Then, Veemo noticed a large gash in the child's forehead. Logically, blood should have been gushing from the wound, but nothing was emerging. In fact, there was no rosy pink tinge to the child's face, like most babies had. Veemo quickly placed two suction-cup fingers under the babies left lekku and felt its neck for a pulse. The little twi'lek's skin was ice cold, and there was not even a remote hint of life.

A feeling of nausea and disgust surged up in him as he looked back from whence he'd come. That kid had been dead long before he crossed the gorge.

_What kind of sick perverts were those people? _He thought to himself.

He quickly realized he didn't want to know the answer. He sought out the nearest pile of trash in a back alley of the little town and opened a baby sized whole in the pile to plant the corpse in.

When he turned to grab the baby several bright lights sudden shined directly in his eyes. Instinctively he lifted his hands to shield his eyes, forgetting to draw his gun. A harsh blow fell to the back of his head, and he went down hard.

Veemo awoke to find himself securely fastened to a chair in a dark room. A single desk lamp was activated on the table beside him and Veemo knew what the blanket wrapped bundle upon the desk was.

Off to the side he saw the cold hearted Twi'lek talking with a very large and imposing looking Zabrak. When he saw Veemo stir the Zabrak flashed him a wicked grin and stepped forward. He spoke to Veemo in huttese.

"You've caused us a great deal of trouble my friend. Thanks to your... Intervention... A shipment is now hours behind schedule, and we're out several hundred thousand creds." the Zabrak informed a very confused Veemo.

The Zabrak plucked the corpse out of the blankets, revealing a line of flesh a touch lighter than the rest, synth-flesh. The Zabrak drew a vibro blade and sliced a perfect cut through the child's abdomen and pushed his hand into the corpse, much to the Rodian's disgust, and then drew out a block of shiny powder wrapped in plastic.

Veemo knew instantly what it was. He'd only used it once himself, the side affects weren't worth it to him, but he knew spice when he saw it, and from the size of this chunk, its value on the market would have made it unnecessary for him to ever work again.

Suddenly it all fell in to place. The inter-species couple, the baby's corpse, the Huttese speaking Rodian. Veemo knew the ruthlessness of the hutt spice cartels. For the first time all day, he was scared for his life.

"The guy you shot was one of the best smugglers Jabba has." The Twi'lek said, stepping up beside the Zabrak. Her voice was as icy and cold as her exterior but held an exotic intrigue due to her Rylothian accent.

Veemo gulped at the name of that hutt.

"You're going to have to make this up to use sleemo." The Zabrak growled. "You're gonna carry two shipments to Eisley for us."

Naturally, Veemo agreed, he'd carried spice before, a being like him might look odd taking to swaddled babies over the boarder but he'd do anything to get out of there alive.

On the far side of the room two men stepped forward, carrying a large oblong crate, a coffin. He blinked in confusion once more, and then he saw the glint of light against medal as the Zabrak passed his Vibro blade to the Twi'lek, a homicidal grin spreading across her lips.

Veemo suddenly understood how these smugglers would be transporting the double shipment.

Well there you are folks. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much has I enjoyed writing it. This story was inspired by an old story about Mexican drug cartels sewing shipments of drugs into the corpses of babies, who are then carried through customs over the Mexican border by smugglers posing as parents.

Most of the wording was taken from the book "BLOODY MARY and other tales for a dark night." By Stefan Dziemianowicz.

StarWars is copy write of Lucas Arts and George Lucas. The characters mentioned here in are creations of my own.

Thank you for reading, and please, give me a review if you liked it, it's nice to know when you've done well.


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